Chicago Bears
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The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are currently members of the Northern Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). Originally called the Decatur Staleys, the team was established by the A.E. Staley Company of Decatur, Illinois in 1919. One year later, George Halas took over the team, and it became a charter member of the NFL. The team relocated to Chicago in 1921, where it was called the Chicago Staleys before being renamed the Bears in 1922.
The Bears have won 9 total league titles (trailing only the Green Bay Packers, who have 12), including 8 NFL Championships and Super Bowl XX. The Bears have the most enshrinees (26 members) in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The team also has a fierce rivalry with the Green Bay Packers, which is the longest rivalry in the NFL with over 170 meetings between the two clubs.
From 1971 to 2001, and from 2003 to the present, the team has played its home games at Soldier Field in Chicago. The stadium is located next to Lake Michigan and was recently remodeled in a controversial modernization that has attempted to bring stadium amenities expected by today's fans to a historic Chicago building. Since 2003, the Bears have been conducting summer training camp at Olivet Nazarene University.
History
- For more details on this topic, see History of the Chicago Bears.
They were founded in 1919 by the A.E. Staley Company in Decatur, Illinois as the Decatur Staleys, originally as a company team, the typical start for several of the early professional football franchises. Staley hired George Halas and Edward "Dutch" Sternaman in 1920 to run the team and turned full control of the team over to them in 1921. Information on Dutch Sternaman
However, official team and league records cite George Halas as the founder as he took over the team in 1920 when it became a charter member of the NFL. The team relocated to Chicago in 1921, where the club was renamed the Chicago Staleys under an agreement that was reached by Halas and Sternaman with Staley. During the relocation, Halas purchased the rights for $100.
Halas liked the bright orange-and-blue colors of his alma mater, the University of Illinois, and the Bears adopted those colors as their own, albeit in a darker shade of each (the blue is a Navy Blue, and the orange is Pantone 1665, similar to burnt orange). As with several early NFL franchises, the Bears derived their nickname from their city's baseball franchise, the Chicago Cubs.
After the financial losses of the 1932 Championship season, Halas' partner Dutch Sternaman left the organization. Halas maintained full control of the Bears until his death in 1983. He also coached the team off-and-on for forty seasons, an NFL record. The team is currently owned by Halas' daughter Virginia McCaskey, who appointed current President and CEO Ted Phillips in 1999.
The Bears were responsible for triggering the NFL's long-standing rule that a player could not be signed until his senior class had graduated. The NFL took that action as a consequence of the Bears' aggressive signing of famous University of Illinois player Red Grange, within a day after his final game as a collegian.
From 1940-1947, quarterback Sid Luckman led the Bears to victories in four out of the five NFL Championship Games they appeared in. The team acquired the University of Chicago's discarded nickname "Monsters of the Midway" as well as a newly-penned theme song that declared them "The Pride and Joy of Illinois". One famous victory during that period was their 73–0 victory over the favored Washington Redskins at Griffith Stadium in the 1940 NFL Championship Game. The score is still an NFL record for lopsided results.. Luckman was one of the most successful players of his generation and still holds club records.
After declining throughout the 1950s, the team rebounded in 1963 to capture their 8th NFL Championship under Halas. The late 1960s and early 1970s gave way to notable players like Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, and Brian Piccolo, who died of lung cancer in 1969. The American television station, ABC aired a movie about Piccolo in 1971.
The Bears' rivalry with the Green Bay Packers is one of the oldest and fiercest in professional sports, dating back to 1921. In one infamous incident in 1921, Halas got the Packers expelled from the league in order to prevent them signing a particular player, and then graciously got them re-admitted after the Bears had closed the deal with that player. In the 1985 season, Coach Mike Ditka used 350-plus pound lineman "Refrigerator" Perry as a truly "wide" receiver in a touchdown play at Lambeau Field, flagrantly taunting the Packers. The Packers have also one-upped the Bears from time to time over the years, such as the "Instant Replay Loss" game of 1989.
The Bears have won a total of 9 league championships, including Super Bowl XX after the 1985 season in which they dominated the NFL with their then-revolutionary 46 defense and a cast of characters that recorded the novelty rap song "The Super Bowl Shuffle". The season was notable in that the Bears had only one loss, the "unlucky 13th" game of the season, a Monday night affair in which they were defeated by the Miami Dolphins. At the time, much was made of the fact that the Dolphins are the only franchise in history (through the 2005 season) to have an undefeated season and post-season. The Dolphins came close to setting up a rematch in the Super Bowl, but lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC title game. Ironically enough, "The Super Bowl Shuffle" was videotaped the next day after that Monday night loss.
After the 1985 Championship season, the Bears remained competitive throughout the 1980s but failed to return to the Super Bowl. After the firing of Mike Ditka at the end of the 1992 season, the Bears have only made the playoffs three times--winning only one game. They have been defeated at home in the playoffs twice in the new millennium, most recently in the 2005-06 season. The Bears have not played in the NFC Championship Game since 1988, when the San Francisco 49ers beat the Bears 28-3 at Soldier Field. The franchise believes that the trip to the 2005 playoffs is the stepping stone to returning to prominence of American football.
Team Colors
Logo
The club has had few official logos throughout their history. The first was introduced in the early 1950s as a black bear on top of a football. The team kept this until 1962, when the Bears trademark 'C' logo was first introduced by the team.
The change in their from the black bear was due to the addition of logos on the helmets, which pro football teams started adding in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Unlike some NFL franchises that have had many different looks over time, the Bears have kept the wishbone 'C' for over 40 years.
In 1974, the team decided to keep the same white 'C' logo but to change to color of it from white to orange with a white trim. This is the current logo to this date however the club has experimented with some alternative logos throughout the past decade including a black bear inside of the orange wishbone 'C', introduced in 1995, and an orange bear head, introduced in 1999.
Uniforms
In 1920 the team introduced the official team uniforms containing brown and blue stripes. In the 1930s, the franchise's team uniform underwent some substantial alterations. After many subtle and not-so-subtle changes, by 1933 the Bears donned all-orange jerseys with navy numbers and matching black helmets. In 1936, they modified this design into "an early version of psychodelia" by adding three orange stripes to their helmets, changing the color of the jerseys from orange to white, complementing the new white jerseys with fourteen navy and orange alternating stripes on the sleeves, and introducing socks with a similar striped pattern extending from ankle to knee. Due to poor response from the fans and the media, this design lasted only one season
.
By 1949, the team was wearing the familiar navy blue shirts with white, rounded numbers. In 1956, the team added "TV numbers" to the sleeves. The Bears 'C' logo first appeared on the helmets in 1962. The logo changed from white to a white-bordered orange logo eleven years later, and has remained unchanged ever since. The Bears added the initials GSH to the left sleeve of their jerseys in 1984 in honor of the late founder/owner/player/head coach 'Papa Bear' George S. Halas who died on October 31, 1983.
Other variations to the Bears uniforms over the years include the addition of navy blue pants as a part of the road kit in 1984. During the 1994 season, the Bears with most of the other NFL franchises introduced throwback uniforms to be worn in the honor of the NFL's 75th Anniversary. These uniforms with brown and blue stripes resemble the original uniforms worn by the team in the 1920's. On October 7, 2002 the Bears wore navy blue pants with their navy blue home jerseys for the first and so far only time in team history. On November 13, 2005, the Bears introduced an orange alternate home jersey. The orange swaps roles with the navy blue on this alternate jersey, as it becomes the dominant color while the navy complements.
Stadium
- For more details on this topic, see Soldier Field.
Soldier Field, located on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago Illinois, is the current home to the Bears. It was closed on a Sunday, January 20, 2002 a day after the Bears lost in the playoffs. It reopened on September 27, 2003 after a complete rebuild (the second in the stadium's history). Many fans refer to the rebuilt stadium as New Soldier Field.
The stadium was the site of the infamous Fog Bowl playoff game between the Bears and Philadelphia Eagles. In 2002, the stadium was closed and rebuilt with only the exterior wall of the stadium being preserved. Many critics have left negative reviews the new stadium. They believed that the current structure of the stadium has made the stadium more of an eyesore than landmark. Some have dubbed the stadium as the "Mistake on the Lake".
In 2006, since the Bears won the NFC Northern Division and the No. 2 Seed in the NFC Playoffs, the team hosted a playoff game on January 15 at Soldier Field against the Carolina Panthers. This was the first playoff game there since the stadium reopened.
The stadium's endzones and midfield were not painted until the 1982 season. The designed sported on the field included the bolded word "Chicago" in both end zones. In 1983, the end zone design returned with the addition of a large wishbone "C" Bears logo painted at midfield. These field markings remained unchanged until the 1996 season. In 1996 the midfield wishbone "C" was changed to a large blue Bears head, and the end zone design were painted with "Bears" in cursive. This new design remained until the 1999 season, at which point the artwork was returned to the classic "Chicago" and the "C". In the new Soldier Field, the artwork was tweaked to where one end zone had the word "Chicago" bolded and the other "Bears".
Ownership
Although the NFL record books cite George Stanley Halas (nicknamed "Papa Bear" and "Mr. Everything") as the founder of the franchise, the Bears were actually started by A.E. Staley. Halas played and coached for the franchise in the 1920s and was named to several All-Pro teams in the decade. He is remembered for the famous signing of college all-star Red Grange.
Halas retired in 1967 and spent the rest of his days as team owner. He became the only person to be involved with the NFL in the first 60 years of it existence and when he passed in 1983, Halas left behind a legacy of truly being "Mr. Everything" with a resume of 63 years as an owner, 40 as a coach, 324 wins, and 8 NFL titles as a coach or owner. He was also apart of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's first induction class in 1963. In his honor, the National Football League named the National Football Conference Championship trophy in his honor as the George Halas Memorial Trophy.
After Halas's death, his daughter Virginia McCaskey took over as the owner of the team, but in sense the team was ran on a daily basis by her son, Michael McCaskey until 1998, when Mrs. McCaskey replaced him with Ted Phillips. Phillips, who is the current man in charge of the Bears, became the first man outside of the Halas-McCaskey family to run the team. Many Bears fans have expressed their displeasure with the McCaskey family. In a Crain's Chicago Business article, one businessman described his wishes for the team to maximize its potential. There have been rumours that the McCaskey family might split up over the team. .
As of 2005, the Forbes Magazine has reported that the Chicago Bears franchise is worth $841 million
. The team has major sponsorship deals with Bank One, Anheuser-Busch, Toyota Motor, Boeing, and Coca-Cola. Additionally, the Bears have an agreement with NBC 5 Chicago (the NBC affilate in Chicago) to broadcast pre-season football games.
| Owner(s) | Year(s) |
|---|---|
| A.E. Staley | 1919-1921 |
| George Halas and Dutch Sternaman | 1921-1932 |
| George Halas | 1932-1983 |
| Virginia McCaskey | 1983-present |
Club presidents
| President(s) | Year(s) |
|---|---|
| George Halas | 1921-1953 |
| George Halas, Jr. | 1953-1979 |
| Mike McCaskey | 1979-1998 |
| Ted Phillips | 1998-present |
The Honey Bears and team mascots
The club's official cheerleaders were hired by General Manager Jim Finks in 1977. The Honey Bears cheered at Soldier Field during all Bears homegames and performed at halftime to the viewing public. The group founder and choreographer, Cathy Core was contacted by Finks on the topic of organizing the cheerleading squad. She didn't believe that Finks was actually calling so she hung up. Later when she found out it was Finks, she apologized.George Halas himself was behind the idea of these "dancing girls" as he wanted his franchise to have cheerleaders, and he said the Honey Bears would be around as long as he was alive. Core established the cheerleading squad that supported the Bears from 1977-1985. After Halas's death in 1983, the McCaskey family ended their relationship with the Honey Bears. Word has it that as long as the McCaskey family owns the team, the Honey Bears will remain a memory.
Before the introduction of Staley Da Bear, the club had two unofficial mascots "Rocky" and "Bearman". "Rocky" wore a "1" Bears jersey, carried a megaphone, and started chants all over Soldier Field during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. He was the unofficial team mascot with a bleak history. There is no known source of who "Rocky" was except that he disappeared from Soldier Field and presumably lived in Northwest Indiana in the early 1990s. "Bearman", Don Wachter, is a season-ticket holder who decided in 1995 if he could assist the team anyway by cheerleading. The club allowed him to run across the field with a large Bears flag during player introductions and each team score. This is when he donned his "costume" of face-paint, bear head and arms, and a number 46 jersey. "Bearman" was forced to stop wearing his costume with the introduction of Staley Da Bear in 2003. The club permitted Wachter to start wearing his costume again in 2005. Watcher can also be spotted at Bears road games.
The Bears in popular culture
While the Super Bowl XX Champion Bears were a fixture of mainstream American pop culture in the 1980's, the Bears made a prior mark with the 1971 American TV-movie Brian's Song starring Billy Dee Williams as Gale Sayers and James Caan as Brian Piccolo. The film told of how Piccolo helped Sayers recover from a devastating knee injury to return to his status as one of the league's best players, and how Sayers in turn helped the Piccolo family through Brian's fatal illness. It became one of the best-loved sports films of all time. A 2001 remake of the movie for ABC starred Sean Maher as Piccolo and Mekhi Phifer as Sayers.In addition to the Super Bowl Shuffle rap song, the Bears' success in the 1980s, especially head coach Mike Ditka, inspired a recurring sketch on the American sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live called "Bill Swerski's Superfans". The sketch featured Cheers co-star George Wendt, a Chicago native, as host of a radio talk-show (similar in tone to WGN radio's "The Sportswriters"), with co-panelists Karl (Robert Smigel), Pat (Mike Myers) and Todd (Chris Farley). To hear them tell it, "Da Bears", Coach Ditka, "Da Bulls" and Michael Jordan could do no wrong. The sketch stopped after Ditka was fired in 1993, and Jordan made his first retirement soon after, but made a brief comeback when Jordan made his first comeback in 1995, with guest-host John Goodman playing Pat in place of the now-departed Myers, suggesting that the absence of Ditka and Jordan from the Chicago sports scene had led him to overeat and become as overweight as Farley. The sketch usually showed the panelists drinking lots of beer and eating lots of Polish sausage, and often featured Farley as Todd getting so agitated about what was happening with the Bears (or the Bulls) that he suffered a heart attack, but quickly recovered (through self-administered CPR). A significantly overweight Farley died in 1997 from a drug overdose exacerbated by arteriosclerosis.
Also, Ditka, Dick Butkus, Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, William "Refrigerator" Perry and Brian Urlacher are among Bears figures known for their appearances in TV commercials.
Statistics and records
- For more details on this topic, see Chicago Bears statistics.
Walter Payton holds the team record for career rushing yards with 16,726. That record was an NFL record until Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys broke it in 2002.
Steve McMichael, (1981-93) holds the record for most consecutive games played by a Bear with 191. In second place is Walter Payton, who played 186 games from 1975 to 1987 at running back, a position considered to be conducive to injury, in a span of 13 seasons while only missing one game.
Mark Bortz holds the record for most Bear playoff appearances with 13, and is followed by 8 other players, who have played in 12 playoff games.
The 1940 Chicago Bears team holds the record for the biggest defeat in an NFL game (playoff or regular season) with a 73-0 victory over the Washington Redskins in the 1940 NFL Championship Game.
Also Halas holds the team record for coaching the most seasons with 40, and with the most career wins of 324. Halas's record was a standing NFL record through 1993. Mike Ditka is the closest to Halas with 112 career victories.
Current roster
Famous players
- For more details on this topic, see List of Chicago Bears players.
Since the founding of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Bears boast the most enshrined Hall-of-Famers (26)in NFL History. George Halas, Bronko Nagurski, and Red Grange were a part of the original class of inductees in 1963, while defensive end Dan Hampton, the most recent Bear inducted, was a part of the Class of 2002.
| Chicago Bears Hall of Famers | |||||
| No. | Player | Positions | No. | Player | Positions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paddy Driscoll | QB-S-K, Head Coach | 42 | Sid Luckman | QB-CB |
| 3 | Bronko Nagurski | RB-OT-LB | 50 | Mike Singletary | LB |
| 5 | George McAfee | RB-S | 51 | Dick Butkus | LB |
| 7 | George Halas | founder, owner, Head Coach, TE-DE | 56 | Bill Hewitt | TE-DE |
| 11 | Link Lyman | OT-DT | 61 | Bill George | LB |
| 13 | George Trafton | C-DT | 66 | Clyde (Bulldog) Turner | C-DT |
| 13 | Joe Stydahar | OT-DT | 71 | George Connor | OT-LB |
| 16 | Ed Healey | OT-DT | 77 | Harold (Red) Grange | RB-CB |
| 16 | George Musso | C-DT | 78 | Stan Jones | OT |
| 16 | George Blanda | QB | 81 | Doug Atkins | DE |
| 21 | Danny Fortmann | G-DT | 89 | Mike Ditka | TE, Head Coach |
| 34 | Walter Payton | RB | 99 | Dan Hampton | DE |
| 40 | Gale Sayers | RB | Jim Finks | General Manager | |
Retired numbers
The Bears have retired 13 numbers, which is the most in the NFL. The Bears rank third behind the New York Yankees and Boston Celtics for the most in American professional sports.| Chicago Bears Retired Numbers | |||
| No. | Player | No. | Player |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Bronko Nagurski | 42 | Sid Luckman |
| 5 | George McAfee | 51 | Dick Butkus |
| 7 | George Halas | 56 | Bill Hewitt |
| 28 | Willie Galimore | 61 | Bill George |
| 34 | Walter Payton | 66 | Clyde (Bulldog) Turner |
| 40 | Gale Sayers | 77 | Harold (Red) Grange |
| 41 | Brian Piccolothe subject of the film Brian's Song | ||
Head coaches
''As of January 15, 2006. Only regular season and postseason games are counted.See Also
| Chicago Bears American Football Club |
|---|
| Chicago Bears |
| The Club | History | Players | Seasons | Statistics | Soldier Field Culture: Brian's Song | Super Bowl Shuffle | Da Super Fans |
| Club Head Coaches |
| Halas | Jones | Halas | Anderson | Johnsos | Halas | Driscoll | Halas | Dooley Gibron | Pardee | Armstrong | Ditka | Wannstedt | Jauron | Smith |
Footnotes
References
External links
Official Team Site Historical Team Links Fans Sites- [Bearscast - Chicago Bears Podcast]
- [Dr. Death's Chicago Bears World]
- [DiBEARS101's Chicago Bears Page]
- [John's Chicago Bears Site]
- [PackerHater's Chicago Bears Page]
- [Mining Co. Chicago Bears]
- [SportsShares - Chicago Bears]
- [Bears Tailgate Society]
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